Contentious Activism and Inter-Korean Relations

Contentious Activism and Inter-Korean Relations
Author: Danielle L. Chubb
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2014-02-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0231536321

In South Korea, the contentious debate over relations with the North transcends traditional considerations of physical and economic security, and political activists play a critical role in shaping the discussion of these issues as they pursue the separate yet connected agendas of democracy, human rights, and unification. Providing international observers with a better understanding of policymakers' management of inter-Korean relations, Danielle L. Chubb traces the development of various policy disputes and perspectives from the 1970s through South Korea's democratic transition. Focusing on four case studies—the 1980 Kwangju uprising, the June 1987 uprising, the move toward democracy in the 1990s, and the decade of "progressive" government that began with the election of Kim Dae Jung in 1997—she tracks activists' complex views on reunification along with the rise and fall of more radical voices encouraging the adoption of a North Korean–style form of socialism. While these specific arguments have dissipated over the years, their vestiges can still be found in recent discussions over how to engage with North Korea and bring security and peace to the peninsula. Extending beyond the South Korean example, this examination shows how the historical trajectory of norms and beliefs can have a significant effect on a state's threat perception and security policy. It also reveals how political activists, in their role as discursive agents, play an important part in the creation of the norms and beliefs directing public debate over a state's approach to the ethical and practical demands of its foreign policy.

Confronting Security Challenges on the Korean Peninsula

Confronting Security Challenges on the Korean Peninsula
Author: Marine Corps Press
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2018-01-21
Genre:
ISBN: 9781984056450

The Korean Peninsula was and is in a state of flux.More than 60 years after the war that left the country divided, the policies and unpredictability of the North Korean regime, in conjunction with the U.S. alliance with South Korea and the involvement of China in the area, leave the situation there one of the most capricious on the globe. Confronting Security Challenges on the Korean Peninsula presents the opinions from experts on the subject matter from the policy, military, and academic communities. Drawn from talks at a conference in September 2010 at Marine Corps University, the papers explore the enduring security challenges, the state of existing political and military relationships, the economic implications of unification, and the human rights concerns within North and South Korea. They also reiterate the importance for the broader East Asia region of peaceful resolution of the Korean issues.

Indo-Pacific Strategy Report - Preparedness, Partnerships, and Promoting a Networked Region, 2019 DoD Report, China as Revisionist Power, Russia as Revitalized Malign Actor, North Korea as Rogue State

Indo-Pacific Strategy Report - Preparedness, Partnerships, and Promoting a Networked Region, 2019 DoD Report, China as Revisionist Power, Russia as Revitalized Malign Actor, North Korea as Rogue State
Author: U S Military
Publisher:
Total Pages: 96
Release: 2019-06-02
Genre:
ISBN: 9781071406878

This important report was issued by the Department of Defense in June 2019. The Indo-Pacific is the Department of Defense's priority theater. The United States is a Pacific nation; we are linked to our Indo-Pacific neighbors through unbreakable bonds of shared history, culture, commerce, and values. We have an enduring commitment to uphold a free and open Indo-Pacific in which all nations, large and small, are secure in their sovereignty and able to pursue economic growth consistent with accepted international rules, norms, and principles of fair competition. The continuity of our shared strategic vision is uninterrupted despite an increasingly complex security environment. Inter-state strategic competition, defined by geopolitical rivalry between free and repressive world order visions, is the primary concern for U.S. national security. In particular, the People's Republic of China, under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, seeks to reorder the region to its advantage by leveraging military modernization, influence operations, and predatory economics to coerce other nations. In contrast, the Department of Defense supports choices that promote long-term peace and prosperity for all in the Indo-Pacific. We will not accept policies or actions that threaten or undermine the rules-based international order - an order that benefits all nations. We are committed to defending and enhancing these shared values.China's economic, political, and military rise is one of the defining elements of the 21st century. Today, the Indo-Pacific increasingly is confronted with a more confident and assertive China that is willing to accept friction in the pursuit of a more expansive set of political, economic, and security interests. Perhaps no country has benefited more from the free and open regional and international system than China, which has witnessed the rise of hundreds of millions from poverty to growing prosperity and security. Yet while the Chinese people aspire to free markets, justice, and the rule of law, the People's Republic of China (PRC), under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), undermines the international system from within by exploiting its benefits while simultaneously eroding the values and principles of the rules-based order.This compilation includes a reproduction of the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community. 1. Introduction * 1.1. America's Historic Ties to the Indo-Pacific * 1.2. Vision and Principles for a Free and Open Indo-Pacific * 2. Indo-Pacific Strategic Landscape: Trends and Challenges * 2.1. The People's Republic of China as a Revisionist Power * 2.2. Russia as a Revitalized Malign Actor * 2.3. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea as a Rogue State * 2.4. Prevalence of Transnational Challenges * 3. U.S. National Interests and Defense Strategy * 3.1. U.S. National Interests * 3.2. U.S. National Defense Strategy * 4. Sustaining U.S. Influence to Achieve Regional Objectives * 4.1. Line of Effort 1: Preparedness * 4.2. Line of Effort 2: Partnerships * 4.3. Line of Effort 3: Promoting a Networked Region * Conclusion

Complexity, Security and Civil Society in East Asia

Complexity, Security and Civil Society in East Asia
Author: Peter Hayes
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2015-06-22
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1783741120

Complexity, Security and Civil Society in East Asia offers the latest understanding of complex global problems in the region, including nuclear weapons, urban insecurity, energy, and climate change. Detailed case studies of China, North and South Korea, and Japan demonstrate the importance of civil society and ‘civic diplomacy’ in reaching shared solutions to these problems in East Asia and beyond. Each chapter describes regional civil society initiatives that tackle complex challenges to East Asia’s security. In doing so, the book identifies key pressure points at which civil society can push for constructive changes¯especially ones that reduce the North Korean threat to its neighbors. Unusually, this book is both theoretical and practical. Complexity, Security and Civil Society in East Asia presents strategies that can be led by civil society and negotiated by its diplomats to realize peace, security, and sustainability worldwide. It shows that networked civic diplomacy offers solutions to these urgent issues that official ‘complex diplomacy’ cannot. By providing a new theoretical framework based on empirical observation, this volume is a must read for diplomats, scholars, students, journalists, activists, and individual readers seeking insight into how to solve the crucial issues of our time.

Towards a Northeast Asian Security Community

Towards a Northeast Asian Security Community
Author: Bernhard Seliger
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2011-06-25
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1441996575

The Northeast Asian security environment is closely linked to Korea’s growth perspectives for the future. The spectacular rise of the South Korean economy in the past half century, also known as “Miracle on the Han River,” has been duly highlighted as one of the most successful cases of economic development worldwide. However, among the factors curbing South Korea’s growth perspectives has been, from the very beginning of its rise, the coexistence of the difficult neighbour to the North, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. While in the cold war this coexistence has been taken as inevitable, after the end of the cold war there were hopes to overcome this obstacle to further growth either through collapse or enhanced cooperation with the North, neither of which became reality. North Korea’s unprecedented aggressiveness and development of long-range ballistic missiles and nuclear devices, made this threat truly an international question with multilateral talks coming into existence as ad-hoc measures to cope with the nuclear crisis. It was then that the idea of a Northeast Asian Security Community was born. The contributions in this book discuss how a peaceful solution of the security problems could not only enhance stability of Korea’s economy and reduce the defense burden considerably (the so-called peace dividend), but would facilitate regional investments safer and regional solutions for common economic problems. When discussing the possibilities of a security framework or, in an institutionalized form, security community, in Northeast Asia, the authors in this volume are realistic as to not fall into the trap of wishful thinking, which so often has characterized approaches to North Korea resulting in disappointment. The past two years again saw the rising of tensions in Northeast Asia and the masterful way in which even an impoverished and isolated country can play its cards. While it seems a new ice age between the two Koreas is possible, nevertheless and maybe even more than ever the search for a stable security framework for Northeast Asia as a precondition for peaceful economic cooperation and development will go on. The chapters in this volume contribute to the ongoing debate to secure peace and development in Northeast Asia, making this book of interest to both academics and policy-makers alike.

Peace and Security in Indo-Pacific Asia

Peace and Security in Indo-Pacific Asia
Author: Sorpong Peou
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2021-11-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000462609

Peace and Security in Indo-Pacific Asia is for the informed, the interested, and the engaged. Sorpong Peou brings together the skills of the pedagogue with the knowledge of the scholar. -Dr. David Dewitt, University Professor Emeritus, Senior Scholar, York University, Toronto, Canada. Peou’s excellent book provides both the lay reader and the specialist with six important theoretical frameworks which should provide the basis for better appreciation of what a security community in Indo-Pacific Asia means in our world today. There are very few scholars who understand the region like Peou. -Dr. W. Andy Knight, Professor of Political Science, the University of Alberta, Canada. Sorpong Peou’s extraordinary breadth of knowledge, of both International Relations theory and the key trends in Indo-Pacific Asia, shines through in this authoritative analysis. -Dr. Richard Stubbs, Professor of Political Science, McMaster University, Canada. A pedagogical approach of the textbook that is appreciated is how the author respectfully engages with the theories of IR and is not pushing an agenda of denouncing some theories and trying to persuade the reader of others. We live in such polarizing times that it is truly refreshing to read scholarly work that avoids sensationalistic attacks on theories that have been debated for decades. Each theory in this manuscript is explored on its own terms, and the reader is encouraged to figure out where they stand on these enduring debates in the context of Indo-Pacific security. The approach will lead to compelling classroom discussions of the theories and the politics of the region. This book is a must-read for any student or observer of security trends in the region. -Dr. Mark Williams, Chair and Professor of Political Studies, Vancouver Island University, B.C., Canada.

Disarming Strangers

Disarming Strangers
Author: Leon V. Sigal
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 336
Release: 1999-07-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1400822351

In June 1994 the United States went to the brink of war with North Korea. With economic sanctions impending, President Bill Clinton approved the dispatch of substantial reinforcements to Korea, and plans were prepared for attacking the North's nuclear weapons complex. The turning point came in an extraordinary private diplomatic initiative by former President Jimmy Carter and others to reverse the dangerous American course and open the way to a diplomatic settlement of the nuclear crisis. Few Americans know the full details behind this story or perhaps realize the devastating impact it could have had on the nation's post-Cold War foreign policy. In this lively and authoritative book, Leon Sigal offers an inside look at how the Korean nuclear crisis originated, escalated, and was ultimately defused. He begins by exploring a web of intelligence failures by the United States and intransigence within South Korea and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Sigal pays particular attention to an American mindset that prefers coercion to cooperation in dealing with aggressive nations. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with policymakers from the countries involved, he discloses the details of the buildup to confrontation, American refusal to engage in diplomatic give-and-take, the Carter mission, and the diplomatic deal of October 1994. In the post-Cold War era, the United States is less willing and able than before to expend unlimited resources abroad; as a result it will need to act less unilaterally and more in concert with other nations. What will become of an American foreign policy that prefers coercion when conciliation is more likely to serve its national interests? Using the events that nearly led the United States into a second Korean War, Sigal explores the need for policy change when it comes to addressing the challenge of nuclear proliferation and avoiding conflict with nations like Russia, Iran, and Iraq. What the Cuban missile crisis was to fifty years of superpower conflict, the North Korean nuclear crisis is to the coming era.

The East Asian Peace

The East Asian Peace
Author: M. Weissmann
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2012-06-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 113726473X

Using a case study based approach, Weissmann analyses the post-Cold War East Asian security setting to demonstrate why there is a paradoxical inter-state peace. He points out processes that have been important for the creation of a continuing relative peace in East Asia, as well as conflict prevention and peacebuilding mechanisms.

Peace Regime Building on the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asian Security Cooperation

Peace Regime Building on the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asian Security Cooperation
Author: Seung-Ho Joo
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2016-05-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317082818

A permanent peace regime on the Korean peninsula has yet to be achieved even though the Korean War came to a halt more than half a century ago. Without a peace treaty formally ending the Korean War, the two Korean states are technically still at war. The current situation on the Korean peninsula is extremely tense and precarious, and tensions and distrust between the two Koreas and between the U.S. and North Korea escalated in the wake of North Korea's second underground nuclear weapons testing in 2009. The editors of this volume conceptually present a two-track (inter-Korean and international) approach to Korean peninsula peace-regime building. They argue that an inter-Korean and international approach should be pursued simultaneously for the construction of a permanent peace regime on the Korean peninsula. The contributing authors are established specialists and experts on Korean foreign relations and Northeast Asian international relations. As natives of the U.S., Korea, China, and Japan, they provide objective, scholarly and diverse perspectives on the Korean peace regime building.